Stewing is the basis of what is called made dishes. The roughest and coarsest parts of meat may be made tender by stewing. It is the kind of cooking I would especially recommend to the wives of working men in preference to frying. The perfection of stewing de- pends upon the slow process by which the cooking is accomplished ; the temperature should never exceed i8o°. We often fail because we are in too great a hurry; but a stew, like everything else, suffers from being over-done. No rule can be given ; everything depends upon the intelligence and judgment of the cook. The lid should be removed as little as possible. An occasional shaking of the stewpan will often save the trouble of stirring. Stewing is the most economical kind of cooking; the flavour and nourish- ment of all the materials are secured; and if the dish be not greasy and highly seasoned, the meat is made tender, savoury, and easy of digestion. FRYING. “Fish must swim twice — once in the water and once in the fat.” “Fried sole.; — you know, served with little kickshaws.” / There are two methods of frying : the dry method, as when we fry an omelette or a pancake ; and the wet method, as when the thing fried is immersed in fat. For dry frying we generally use a frying-pan ; for wet frying a frying-kettle. As a bath for frying purposes we generally use fat. The light-coloured dripping of roast beef and the fat skimmed off broth are to be preferred. The next best fat for frying is beef suet, chopped fine and melted down over a slow fire without browning. Lard is the fat generally used for frying ; but it is liable to leave an unpleasant flavour. When you can see the bottom of the stewpan through the liquid fat it is sufficiently melted. Let it cool for a few minutes, and strained through a pointed strainer. The reason for allowing the fat to cool a little is to prevent its melting the strainer. When butter is used greater care is required, because it rises rapidly in temperature and requires a slow fire. Oil requires even more care : it should be warmed for half an hour over a slow fire so as to prevent any rapid rise in temperature, and boiling over. 56 Buckmaster1 s Cookery . The usual method of frying is the most wasteful kind of cooking, although in most houses it is believed to be economical. A little fat or butter is melted in a frying-pan, and when the frying is finished the fat is so discoloured and burnt as to be of no further use. It is not possible to fiy a moderate sized pair of soles in less than a quarter of a pound of fat. In eight fryings you have used two pounds of fat. Now if you had taken two pounds of fat at first, and slowly melted it in a clean saucepan or stewpan till the fat had risen to the proper temperature you might have fried much better, and your fish would have been of the same colour on both sides, and the fat could have been used for ten or a dozen pair of soles instead of eight. The most economical way of frying is to have plenty of fat, and the quantity can be kept up by daily addi- tions from saucepans, dripping-pans, and fat meats.

AI-modernized reading of the original text

Stewing is the basis of what is called made dishes. The roughest and coarsest parts of meat may be made tender by stewing. It is the kind of cooking I would especially recommend to the wives of working men in preference to frying. The perfection of stewing depends upon the slow process by which the cooking is accomplished ; the temperature should never exceed i8o°. We often fail because we are in too great a hurry; but a stew, like everything else, suffers from being over-done. No rule can be given ; everything depends upon the intelligence and judgment of the cook. The lid should be removed as little as possible. An occasional shaking of the stewpan will often save the trouble of stirring. Stewing is the most economical kind of cooking; the flavour and nourishment of all the materials are secured; and if the dish be not greasy and highly seasoned, the meat is made tender, savoury, and easy of digestion. FRYING. “Fish must swim twice — once in the water and once in the fat.” “Fried sole.; — you know, served with little kickshaws.” / There are two methods of frying : the dry method, as when we fry an omelette or a pancake ; and the wet method, as when the thing fried is immersed in fat. For dry frying we generally use a frying-pan ; for wet frying a frying-kettle. As a bath for frying purposes we generally use fat. The light-coloured dripping of roast beef and the fat skimmed off broth are to be preferred. The next best fat for frying is beef suet, chopped fine and melted down over a slow fire without browning. Lard is the fat generally used for frying ; but it is liable to leave an unpleasant flavour. When you can see the bottom of the stewpan through the liquid fat it is sufficiently melted. Let it cool for a few minutes, and strained through a pointed strainer. The reason for allowing the fat to cool a little is to prevent its melting the strainer. When butter is used greater care is required, because it rises rapidly in temperature and requires a slow fire. Oil requires even more care : it should be warmed for half an hour over a slow fire so as to prevent any rapid rise in temperature, and boiling over. Buckmaster's Cookery. The usual method of frying is the most wasteful kind of cooking, although in most houses it is believed to be economical. A little fat or butter is melted in a frying-pan, and when the frying is finished the fat is so discoloured and burnt as to be of no further use. It is not possible to fiy a moderate sized pair of soles in less than a quarter of a pound of fat. In eight fryings you have used two pounds of fat. Now if you had taken two pounds of fat at first, and slowly melted it in a clean saucepan or stewpan till the fat had risen to the proper temperature you might have fried much better, and your fish would have been of the same colour on both sides, and the fat could have been used for ten or a dozen pair of soles instead of eight. The most economical way of frying is to have plenty of fat, and the quantity can be kept up by daily additions from saucepans, dripping-pans, and fat meats.

Buckmaster's cookery